


Burnt Out

by NeverBackDown001



Series: Fire and Flame(Ellick) [4]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Injury Recovery, Near Death Experiences, Seeing the dead, falling in love all over again kind of thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:35:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverBackDown001/pseuds/NeverBackDown001
Summary: While Ellie recovers, she sees the faces of her past, both dead and alive, and it brings her to realize that sometimes you have to take a leap of faith before you start running forwards.
Relationships: Ellie Bishop/Nick Torres
Series: Fire and Flame(Ellick) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170425
Comments: 10
Kudos: 50





	1. On The Doorstep of Death

He held her, cradling her head in his arms, wiping the blood and dirt from her face as her eyes closed, softly, dull as dying grass. 

"No, Ellie, stay with me, stay with me El!" He cried out, shaking her gently, hoping, hoping with all that he had in him that she wasn't dead, his other hand moved to her pulse, throbbing softly, weakly in her chest. "Stay with me please." He pleaded, brushing the dirty blonde curls from out of her eyes, tucking behind her ears. 

McGee and Gibbs came bursting through the door, like he had moments ago, guns gripped in hand and a firm look planted in their unnerving blue and green eyes. 

"Is she..." McGee trailed off, too afraid to even mouth the words 'death', like it would jinx her situation. Maybe it would, maybe saying the word was some form of bad ju-ju, terrible luck that couldn't be erased. 

"No." He replied, raking his eyes from her to his boss and co-worker, darting back and forth, "She's...she's going to if we don't get out of here. And now." 

Gibbs ran in the other direction, his voice growing hoarse for calling for a medic. Would a medic be good enough? Would the camp hospital be good enough? What had they done to her? Ellie's face and arms flowed with bruises, reds, purples, yellows and greens, making deft pattern across her unnervingly pale skin. Two wounds on her thighs, patched up with dirty rags and strips of her own uniform, blood seeping from underneath. 

What had they done to her? 

Had they touched her? With filthy roaming hands-had they touched his Ellie? 

Nick would destroy everything and everyone if he didn't get his paws on this Asif Abbas guy and tear him down, piece by piece until the rage would soften into a flame to warm Ellie. 

Hours later Nick stared at the EVAC take off into the ever so blue, morning sky, the sun brightening the soft blue above. Ellie was being taken back home to Walter Reed where she would be treated. The camp medic had rattled off too many injuries, too many to count.

"Splintered ribs, fractured nose, two knife wounds to the left leg, punctured lung..." More than Nick would like to hear. More than should be there. Seeing her there, unconcious, slipped into a coma(the medic assured him it was perfectly normal for trauma victims) 

"She'll be fine then?" He asked in a hurry. The mousy haired medic, with bright cobalt blues for eyes, looked at him in sympathy, the worried expression drawn clean on his face. Could he make it any more obvious? 

"The doctors at Walter Reed will have to give you that, but there is a chance she'll make it." There was some doubt laced in the medic's tone, Nick ignored it. Ellie was an independent fighter, she never backed down from a challenge, never gave up, her soul was laced with a never quit kind of spirit, it ran in her blood, in everything she did and everyone she talked to. 

Nick would know. She rubbed off on him, more than he would like to admit. 

But this feeling was worse than the one before, the feeling of sickness that wrought his chest and head. Seeing her, laying there, broken, bruised, bloodied, stained with her own blood, uniform in tatters, barely hanging off her already small frame, it would haunt him. But how would she come out of this? Scarred, more broken? Would she be able to go back to normal ever again? God knows McGee barely did. The guy struggled with coming back to work for months. 

He hated this feeling of helplessness. He wanted to help her, to do something that would make him useful. But he stood here, watching the plane dissapear into the soft blue, red and orange canvas that hung above, the sun's rays peeking over the crest of the desert hills. 

According to Gibbs they would be leaving soon too, back to DC where they would go back to work and forget this ever happened. Nick couldn't do that. Not like Gibbs, not like McGee or anyone else on the team because knowing Ellie was okay was enough for them. It was not the same for him. It was not the same because he cared for Ellie. Not like Gibbs did, not like McGee, Jimmy or Kasie. 

Sure they had broken up, sure he had tried to move on, she had sure tried too, by taking the assignment(probably without second thought because Ellie was stubborn and dumb like that sometimes,) but it didn't mean he stopped caring. She was his partner, in both crime and (hopefully, wishing he hadn't screwed it up that much) in life. 

This feeling, made his insides twist into hot, searing knots of anguish. 

Was this his fault? Was all of this his fault? 

He was the reason they had split. And them being split had been a reason Ellie had taken the assignment(he was an idiot, but he wasn't blind). If she hadn't taken the assignment, this wouldn't have happened and she would be home safe(most likely in his arms) and not on the way back in a coma. 

This was his fault. 

Nick should be the one in the coma, half-alive, half-dead(Nick didn't understand the whole half full, half empty glass thing, he would have drank the thing, not thought about it like McGee or Gibbs may have) 

Nick should be the one in pain. Not his sweet, sweet Ellie and her beautiful soul. 

"Torres, gear up, we're goin' home." Gibbs shouted from across the patch of dried, dead grass, shoving Nick from his state of undeniable stupor, staring at nothing, eyes glazed over. 

What was he going to do when he got back home? Go to work and forget this happen while Ellie fought for her life half an hour from where he worked and practically lived at this point? What was he going to say to her family who didn't even know he and Bishop had dated? Tell her brothers that he had been an ass, letting her go on assignment and then let her get kidnapped and tortured. That would be a dandy conversation. 

Grabbing his dufflel, he steadied himself, readying to board the plane back home, a long trip and he hadn't brought anything to do. Sleep would never come. Sleep wouldn't come until he was beside her, making sure she was safe, with him, not on a plane home, fighting for survival. 

"You ready?" McGee glanced over at Nick as plane buzzed with life, purring beneath his boots. 

"Are you?" 

McGee let out a soft laugh, scratching his beard with one hand and a hand gripping his bag with the other. "Ready to get home, kiss my kids and rest, yeah." McGee took a closer look at Nick, furrowing his brows. "And don't worry, she's okay, in good hands, I promise." 

Nick laughed, without any humor in his voice. "You can't know that, Tim." 

Tim shrugged. "You're right I can't. But with this job, you have to have faith, without it, nothing is going to work for you." 

"Is that what you tell yourself every-time something goes wrong." Nick said exapserated on how positive Tim could be, even in a time like this, when worry hung in the air heavily, even if Ellie had been rescued. 

"No. But when I was running through a Russian forest with Gibbs and Kevin, I think it was faith in what we do and the people we work with that got me through it." 

Nick remembered the story, close to six years ago, the crashed helicopter and running through a Russian forest close to the border of Finnish territory. When he had first heard it, he didn't believe it, thought it something of a far-fetched tale that had another one of Gibb's rules embedded in the cracks. It was still a kind of crazy story to hear. 

"I wish I could do something." Nick flung his hands up and to his side, angry with the fact that he couldn't do a thing but sit on a plane that wasn't even in the air. "I...need to do something." 

McGee(again) placed a firm hand on Nick's shoulder, comforting, there, in support of him. "When we get back, that's when you can do something. We can't have her waking up to an empty room." 

No. 

He couldn't let her wake to an empty room, he would sit with her until she woke up, sit with her through whatever care she had to go through to get better because she deserved that much. She deserved someone to care for her, to love her like she had loved him. 

Nick would spend the rest of his life making this up to her. 


	2. Due Date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I purposely didn't add all of Ellie's torture, so there is some that only i know of so far(I have it written down and plotted) but it will come up in flashbacks and other parts of the next story. Thank you, and sorry if this had confused you.

She swam through what seemed like an infinite void of darkness, pooling around her, cool and dark to the touch, like a salve to her raging warm body. But the darkness would come over like a tidal wave, towering over her, then crashing down. When the tide would recede, it's pull would take her with. 

Ellie's mind was fuzzy, where in the hell was she? Was this death? 

Panic seized her chest,grappling her heart like an iron fist, clenching it tightly, too tightly for that matter. No. She couldn't die. She wasn't ready yet. But was anyone ever really ready for death and whatever came afterwards? Was anyone ready to give up their life? Ellie didn't know what to believe when it came to an afterlife, when it came to what happened after death. 

"You're not dead," A familiar voice rang out, one she was sure she would never hear again. One that warmed her to her toes. "But you are inching near, Ellie." 

The face that belonged to the voice appeared from the shadows, tall, suit, trimmed beard, dark skin and eyes that where always topped to the brim with imagination, life, beauty and simply...wonder. 

_Clay._

Ellie felt like crying when she collapsed onto the dark, floor, looking up at his face, his beautiful, lively face that at one point, eager to see every day and every day after. The painful pang of his death, a cracked rib in her chest, one yet to heal, everytime she had thought of him, it hurt to breath. Maybe she would never really get over his deatj. 

"Ellie," He whispered, his eyes and head craned downwards, looking at her. "I know." 

What did that mean? Did he know that she was trying to break down at the sound of his voice or his handsome, well sculpted face? Was it because this somewhat confirmed she was going crazy while dying? 

"I- are you real?" A choked voice, struggling to let the tears remain at bay. If he was real, then she was obviously dead. She didn't want to be dead. 

Clay kneeled down beside her, his beard trim as neatly as he liked it, his dark, yet soft brown eyes where kind, full of endless beauty, unlimited amounts of heart and soul. 

"I am only real because you remember me. This is called the -In Between, the missing piece where you aren't dead, yet so very close. You're dying El," 

So this wasn't death. She wasn't gone, not yet at least. So if she was dying, why was she here and seeing a face of her past, one that burned her heart with seeing and hearing his voice. Why was he here? Why? It is not like she isn't glad to see his handsome face, but when she wakes, it will only hurt more knowing that she'll never see him again, not for a long time at least. 

"Why are you here?" Ellie croaked, his gaze burning into her own. 

Clay chuckled like it was a funny inside joke, one that Ellie was too young to understand(it was like with her brothers and their dumb friends she couldn't hang out with because she was the baby or something like that) 

"Your life isn't over yet El. You may be dying, but you can still fight to live, fight for another day." 

"Why didn't you?" Ellie sniffled, the question slipped from her mouth and she immiedatly regretted it. Why would she ask such question? It was a stupid and idiotic one at that. 

Clay only laughed again, that musical, breathless kind of laugh. A tune she only got to hear a few times. "I didn't have much of a choice. But I died because my time was up, my experation date was due. Yours is...far, far away, not for a long time El."

Ellie didn't believe it. 

Maybe she didn't want to. 

Maybe there was a part of her, wanting and waiting to die because her life had been the cause of so much pain, so many people taken from her, slipping through what seemed like an iron grasp, but managed to get through the cracks she neglected because she was confident, almost sure they wouldn't. But they did. 

"Look," Clay placed two hands on each of Ellie's shoulders, comforting real, with that warmth she loved when giving him hugs after a brand new packet of chips where on her desk. "Many people give up once they get here, many don't get a choice, like me. But you, El, you can fight because your spirit is like fire," Clay whispered deftly. "A fire that nothing, nothing can put out. It was grow and burn forever." 

A tear escaped from Ellie's eyes, slipped down the canyons of her cheeks, as she scrunched up her nose. She wasn't a fire, a flame. No. She was nothing like that. She was the ash of the wildfire, after the smoke in the sky was ignored and the scorched skin of the Earth over-looked. 

Ellie was burnt out. 

Nothing left for her to lose. 

Clay seemed to see the ideas in her eyes, a dissapointed look drawn over his handsome face. 

"You don't have to believe me Ellie, but there are people out there, who need you more than you need me." 

Clay's hands left her shoulder, but Ellie wasn't done with him yet. No, he could not leave her again.

"But I do need you Clay, after you died, it was like I couldn't breathe." 

Clay raised a heavy brow. "Yet you breathe now, Ellie. It is okay, as long as I live in your memory, heart, soul, I shall never die." 

He sank into the shadows, the darkness blurring together and Ellie collapsed again, her mind blurring with fuzzy details and swimming with pain. 

\-- ----- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- - - - - - - -- - - - -

When Nick arrived back to DC, he didn't even bother going home, he changed into normal clothes at the Navy Yard, showered, trimmed his beard a little and drove straight to Walter Reed, where he would have to call Ellie's family(a conversation he wasn't ready for, but he'd rather it be him than some random nurse or doctor that didn't know Ellie) 

The car ride to the hospital seemed longer than both plane rides ever did, ages to out of the Navy Yard and it was like all of the stop signs and red lights where out to get him, it pissed him off. He just wanted to get there, not have to wait forever. 

How long would she be in that coma? How long would it take for Ellie to heal? 

How long? 

The question nagged at him, nawing at his soul, eating away at his heart. Would she come out of this...like herself? The sweet person he knew before. 

When he got to the hospital, his questions where answered. 

"She lost a lot of blood, we almost had to do a transfusion, but her coma is purely her, she decides whether or not to come out of it." The nurse said when he asked, not yet seeing Ellie. He wouldn't be able to see her, look at her without knowing she was going to make a recovery. 

"And her injuries?" Nick asked kindly, but fearful. Fearful the injuries where something that wouldn't be able to heal. 

The nurse gave him an empathetic look. "Her left leg, both arms and physical injuries will heal, with time. We also found evidence of...electrical burns." The nurse said with hesitation, but it made Nick's blood run ice cold. 

"Thank you," He gave the nurse a kind look before steeling his nerves and walking into the room Ellie was in. Beeps of machines, steady breathing and...Ellie. Her skin not as pale, her hair combed back(one of the nurses must have done this,) falling down one shoulder, steady bouts of oxygen. 

He sank into the chair beside her, watching her breathing, her heart monitor that was at normal levels. She was like a sleeping angel, not even the demons could wake her, or wanted to. She looked...at peace. 

"I'm sorry," A choked whisper, he wasn't even sure it was him talking. "I'm sorry I let this happen." 

This was all his fault, he could have prevented it. 

But he didn't. 

He let it happen. 

He should have been by her side, protecting her. 

Leaning forwards he kissed her cheek, soft, letting her know that he was there for her. She wouldn't wake to strangers, she would wake to him or her family( a call he was still dreading to make ) 

"I'm not leaving you," A promise. One he wouldn't, couldn't-won't break. 


	3. The Person to Blame

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its a short chapters, but I had to take a break for a while and thought I would do a small update.

When her family arrives, Nick wants to slink away before they see him. They don't know him(well her brothers had met him) but they didn't know he and Ellie had dated. They didn't know and he preferred to keep it that way so they didn't hate him like she already did.

But since he's an idiot, he stays. He stays because he has to be the one to explain what happened to her, because Gibbs will be too blunt, McGee will underplay it and the nurses don't know what really happened. He has to be the one. There isn't any other way to this but him explaining to her mother, father and brothers. 

When he called Mrs. Bishop over the phone, he just says she's been injured. He can't tell her over the phone because that is cold, unforgiving and just simply bad ju-ju. He wouldn't want his mom to be told what happened to him over the phone, so he doesn't tell Mrs. Bishop. 

He doesn't expect her to bring all of the brothers, but if they're as stubborn as Ellie, they probably forced their way onto the plane. It makes Nick smile just slightly. He waits in her little recovering room, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, the beep of the heart monitor. It's almost calming, it makes him realize that even if she's slipped into a coma, she's still alive, fighting somewhere in her consciousness. 

She has to be fighting. The Ellie he knows, is stubborn, independant and stubborn. She won't back down from a fight and if she does, she'll still find a way to swing her fists and take down the bad-guy. 

It makes Nick smile more than he should. 

And it's kind of hot when she's stubborn and fericly independent. 

When her family arrives, he hears them before he sees them, their footsteps, the asking of where 'His lil' sister was. Nick stands and turns to face them, his hands in the back pocket of his jeans, the patterned flannel he wears is a little dirty since he hasn't really been home yet since he arrived two days ago, but he put deoderant on at work this morning. 

Mrs. Bishop looks just like Ellie, long blonde hair, that's speckled with greys and whites(she has to be in her early sixties), but her eyes are blue, like the ocean, not Ellie's green-gray. She's petite and has glasses on the end of her nose. 

Mr. Bishop is a tall man, balding, his skin like aged leather, but bright, bright green eyes. 

Nick has met her brothers, who all look alike, George, the oldest has brown hair and blue eyes, the younger two, Robbie and Jonny, are blonde with blue eyes. Ellie seems to be the only one that inherited the green and that makes her a little more special in Nick's book. 

Nick shakes Mrs and Mr. Bishops hands and nods to her brothers. "I'm Nick, Ellie's co-worker. It's nice to meet you, just wish it was under better circumnstances." Nick smiles softly, glancing over his shoulder at Ellie who still breaths rythmatically. 

"What happened?" One of her brothers asked, looking at Ellie from behind the glass, worried looks all mirrored in their eyes. 

Nick hesitates. He can't fully disclose everything because some of it is classified. Part of him just wants to say she was injured in an explosion and that's that. But it won't explain the scars on her wrists and the electrical burns on her chest. It won't explain all of it. 

"As you know," Nick starts slowly, breathing in deeply. "Ellie was on assignment in the Middle East, for six weeks." 

The brothers and parents nod. Good. At least Ellie didn't tell them she wasn't. 

"Her assignment, I can't tell you, it's classified, but she was taken hostage," The mom gasps, covering her mouth with her hand and all of the brother's eyes widen a little. "For nearly four days. And during that time...." He hesitated again. "Was tortured for information." 

Nick hates himself. He could have used a hundred different words or phrases for saying what happened to her and he used torture? But what other way was there to explain it? 

He hates himself. Her family should hate him. It wouldn't surprise him. 

"And you didn't tell us she was taken hostage?" This is the first Nick hears Mr. Bishop talk, his voice low and tone dangerous. 

Nick looks to his feet. It wasn't his call to make but they should blame him, he's the easiest to blame. 

"That wasn't my call to make. We had to act and act fast. She held out though," He glances over his shoulder. "Doctors say she'll make a full recovery, but she has to come out of a coma first." 

All of her brothers hands curl into tight fists that make the veins in their temple throb and eyes bulge out a little. Nick's angry too. He's angry at himself, angry at the world. Angry at the people who hurt his Ellie, who cut into her skin, who soured her blood and took a chunk out of her heart and soul. 

"Were you the one who brought her home?" George asks, fire in his blue eyes. Fire that is just like his sisters, fire that can't quite be quelled. 

Nick nods. "Yeah. I was the one who found her." 

The bloodied images of Ellie injured, half-dead, half-alive, bruised, shackled to the ground, crying for help but no sound coming out, images that would replay in his head for a long, long time. But what kind of images would Ellie seen when she woke up? Would she be the same. 

Nick knew he wouldn't be. He wouldn't be the same person he was. 

What surprises Nick is, when Mrs. Bishop wraps him in a gentle hug. 

"thank you." She says, in a choked sort of whisper, looking over his shoulder at Ellie. 

"Your welcome." He murmurs back. 

The family goes into the tiny room, taking turns holding Ellie's hand or brushing her hair back. The oldest brother starts braiding her hair, which makes him smile, because there are so many people that love Ellie. Maybe he's one of them. He loves her with all of his heart and that's important. 

But he should be the one to blame for what happened. 


	4. Soft Voices of The Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'the past is what makes us look to a brighter future'   
> -unknown

Ellie is swimming in the same endless pools of grays and mingled black shadows. She is swimming through it, her arms sore and and tired, her mind bleary, weak with anger and simply tiredness. 

She is tired from swimming. 

Tired from trying to hold onto the edge as she's being yanked backwards. Ellie wants to let go and end it all. It would be so easy to give into the warmth that lay behind her and the darkness and chilled shadows ahead of her. 

She wants to let go. If she lets go, she knows there will be no more pain, suffering and heartache, no more doubts, anxiety and lies. If she lets go, she lets go of all she hates, all that she cannot let go in the real world. 

Ellie wants to let go. 

"If you stop, you're a coward." A warm voice, familiar, one that she knows well, one that taught her many lessons, one that is comforting to her whenever she arrives in the office. Ellie knows who it is, without having to look over her shoulder, she knows. But he's not dead. Not like Clay was. 

"Gibbs." She sighs in relief when his wolfish eyes turn to her and seem to stare into her soul, she knows this isn't real, that she hit her head to hard and she's simply imaginging all of this bullshit, but she is still comforted by the face of seeing a real, familiar face. 

Maybe she is happy that she is not alone in the endless voids of darkness. His face makes her smile, her wolfish blue eyes turned upon her, burning with a wild fire inside them, like a flashlight in the shadows. 

"If you stop, you're a coward." He repeats, his thin lips barely moving, but the words still resonate loud and clear in her mind. It's like one of his rules, etched in her brain, forever repeating itself. Ellie remembers learning those rules when she was an NSA agent. She remembers biting her tongue, wanting to bite back and say that some of those rules where entire bullshit. Like rule twelve, that was BS, or rule ten, that too was stupid. 

But Gibbs said everything for a reason. Every rule was a mistake he has seen or made during his career. Some where Mike Frank's old rules. Some where his own. 

Some Ellie hated, disliked with her heart. 

Rule _#10-_

Never get personally involved on a case. 

That was total crap. The case with Morgan had been personal, the case with Cody and Vicious had been personal. Cases with the NSA, Willoughby. All personal. Most worked out in the end, others' didn't. But if she didn't get personal, she felt like she was just doing the job, not really doing the job. 

Rule _#11-_

When the job is done, walk away. 

Sometimes she couldn't just walk away, not like Gibbs could, not like McGee or Torres. No, she had to go back, revisit if something felt wrong, if she felt like she hadn't done enough. With Morgan, with Baby Cody, with so many others with young girls or people who reminded Ellie of her younger-self. Sometimes, when the job is done, you have to hide a piece of it within you, so when you look back, it'll always be there. 

Ellie could walk away, but she wouldn't. 

Rule _#14_

You can bend the line, don't break it. 

Sometimes the only way to get past the line was to break it. Sometimes the only way to get what you want, is to break the line. Ellie had done that. With Chen, getting her revenge for her boyfriend, for someone who has opened up her heart, only for Ellie having to be the one to close it again, the stitches are now faded scars, but still there. To get what you want, to get what you need, sometimes you had to break the line. But if you crossed it, Ellie had learned this, sometimes it was more difficult to cross back over. 

Yet there are some rules she agrees with, most are fine with her. Rules that firmly set the boundries, some which she dare not cross, not with Gibbs around. 

Rule _#9-_

Never go anywhere without a knife. 

This proves more than useful in more situations than Ellie would have liked to experience. Some too, have been lessons, cutting someones rope bonds, using it as leverage. She keeps an old knife from her childhood tucked by her ankle in her combat boots or on a clip a little higher up from her ankle. A rule that is firm. One she can understand. 

Rule _#39-_

No such thing as a coincidence. 

The one rule Ellie hears most often. Sometimes she disagrees, thinks that the world is too small, too tight knit for there not to be at least one coincidence. But it makes sense when chasing down the bad-guys. It makes sense when doing dangerous work. So she will agree, keep her mouth shut and not fight back upon the one rule that Gibbs says the most. At least the one everyone says around the office. 

Rule _#51-_

Sometimes you're wrong. 

Ellie had been wrong on numerous occasions. Wrong for taking the lead on a couple of cases, wrong for not trusting her gut(which sometimes is a little trippy to her, when she was so used to data and facts, being an analyst and all). Wrong for letting certain people into her heart, wrong for many things and that is something she is not hiding. Everyone is wrong, even Gibbs. 

Though she would never tell him that to his face. 

"If you stop," Gibbs said again. "You're a coward." 

Ellie felt like crying, like getting all the pain and weight off her shoulders and chest, even if this Gibbs isn't real, only in her head. 

"I..don't think I can go on much longer." She whispered, hot tears bubbling in her eyes, swallowing them down, forcing them away, she couldn't cry like this. No. 

Gibbs only smiled, his wolfish gaze turned a little soft, yet the harsh blue still resonating clear in her head. Why couldn't she let go. Let go of all this pain that had come into her life. The images of the bloodied knife- her blood, staining the concrete floor, in her hair and skin. Images, pain, burning pain that would haunt her forever. A ghost that would never leave her side. 

"Sometimes, we want to let go." Gibbs finally murmured something else. "Sometimes we want to end it all and give up. But if you stop, you prove to everyone, that you, are a coward." 

The words are harsh, not like him, yet exactly his personality. 

The words are harsh, yet true. 

She wasn't a damn coward. She was more than that. She was Eleanor Bishop, a nerd turned nerd with a gun. People gave her respect now, people saw her more than a pretty face with a badge. She was independent, she was her own damn hero, one that she had forged herself. 

"How do I get back...?" She asked, her fingers curling into fists, clenching around the cold, empty darkness as Gibbs fades into the shadows, his blue eyes still bright like beacons of light. 

"You'll find a way." He says, before he's gone. 

Ellie wishes she had more time, but she starts up again, with a heavy breath, inhaling and exhaling deftly, before swimming through the endless voids of darkness, hopeful she won't see any other faces, but her luck isn't that strong, not yet. 

* * *

It's been a week. An entire damn week since Ellie has gotten back from Pakistan and is laying in a hospital. 

Nick has visited every day he could. He gives her family some space, her dad and brothers have to get back to the farm and their own families in Oklahoma. He doesn't blame them, seeing Ellie in this state is more than painful. 

It's like a heartache that never goes away. A splinter in his heart that he can't dig out. 

Going to work is better, he fills her snack drawers to the brim and sets a box of even more snacks beside her desk. He dusts off the corners and makes sure her plant is watered(he's watered it more than she ever has). It makes him feel like he's acomplishing something. 

At night, when her mother goes to the hotel, he holds her hand, scooting the chair close to the bed where he runs a hand down her braids that her brothers did and tells her about his day, hoping she can hear him. Hoping that she is still clinging on, trying to find a way back. 

"You're going to ask why this happened to you, Ellie." He says on the eight night. "I'll tell you some crappy saying, like 'everything happens for a reason.' He makes airquotes with his other hand, her hand in his other. 

"But sometimes, life just sucks." 

Nick knows she'll think he's right. She'll appreciate the truth more than that crappy saying he's heard too many times. 

He goes on telling her about his day, telling her all of McGee's antics and that his kids where making a card for her, one with glitter, paint and glitter(Nick did not want to clean up glitter, it was like the devils way of arts and crafts). He tells her that he got head-slapped by Gibbs for eating during the case(what! He was hungry) 

It's nice to talk to her, even if she can only listen and not reply. 

"One day you'll ask how I knew," He whispers to her. "How I knew that you where the one." 

Oh god. He hates himself when he gets sappy but now he can't turn back. 

"it wasn't love at first sight, not with you pointing a gun at me in an alley." He laughs at the memory, four years ago, her green eyes trained on him, with a gun leveled to his face. "It was like familiarity. Like, oh it's you, it's going to be you. And I struggled with that for too damn long." 

Nick has admitted this fact to himself many times. He didn't want a lover, a soulmate, not a family. He was destined to be alone and that was that. She had changed his perspective on that. 

He presses a gentle kiss to her temple. "It's you, Ellie." 


	5. Awakening's

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter made me cry, for no reason, but I just started sobbing bc I was listening to Dean Lewis songs on repeat. I'm such a mood when I write. Enjoy

She see's the light at the end of the tunnel. Her first thought goes to when she is little. The light at the end of the tunnel in the stupid fairy tales that either have heaven or hell waiting behind them. She thinks that behind that light, it her life, not a heaven awaiting her. 

Ellie would get into heaven, no question on that, she had done too much, sacrificed too much to be dancing with the Devil and his demons with fire erupting around her. She had given too much. 

She had given everything so other people could have it all. 

Something tells her, that there will be something in the way of the tunnel entrance. A feeling in her gut, one that is sure of it. In recent years, she has learned to listen to the voice down there, it's small, yet loud. Sometimes she gets it mixed up with her stomach voice, asking for more potato chips, but who doesn't want more and more potato chips? 

Surging forwards, like if she runs towards it fast enough, they can't stop her, Ellie goes headfirst into an invisible wall. It knocks her backwards, sending her sprawling into the dark clouds behind her.

Groaning as she stands, she pressed a firm hand to the invisible wall. 

Yep, that's pretty solid. 

"Nice try, but did you really think it was that easy?" A cold voice, one she knows too well, one that she hasn't heard in many years, speaks right into her ear, like that of a snakes. 

Funny enough, his name ryhmes with it. 

Ellie twists her lips into a frown, wrinkling her nose and stitching her eyebrows together, not daring to look over her shoulder and see the cold truth that stands behind her, a statue that resembles all that she could have, but lost, all that she had, but let go of. A mistake, a lesson, one that she has learned painfully, etched into her mind, repeating it like a mantra. 

Don't look over your shoulder. She tells herself this. Don't look over your shoulder. Don't. Don't. Don.'t 

If she looks over her shoulder, she'll know. She'll know and she'll hate herself more than she already does right now. Why can't the universe just let her go back to her normal life now? Why? 

First Clay, which is painful to see and hear his voice, a reminder than she has lost one too many people in her life. The Gibbs who manages to get her moving again with three sentences and a reminder of the lessons he's taught her in the almost past decade. 

But him? Out of all the people in the world that have taught her lessons, made her a better person, the universes chooses him? 

Stupid Ellie peeks over her shoulder, the cold feeling of dread washing over her like that of a unhappy tsunami. 

"Out of all the people I could see and it you?" Ellie bites. Sure she has forgiven him, let go of the past a long time ago, but this, this was like a fresh, harsh, cold slap to the face. 

"I don't make the rules." Jake shrugs non-chalantley. "But it was either me or another dead face." 

"I would have preferred a dead face, I deal with a lot of those now-adays." She murmurs, his brown eyes looking upon her are poison, itching her skin, making her want to claw her hair out with a rake. 

Turning around, she pounds on the invisible wall with a clenched fist, no sound comes out, but she hopes the wall will let down so she can get out of here, because his very presence is like venom in her veins, coursing slowly, but surely, making it's way to her heart and soul. Not again. 

Not again. She can't be trapped....with him? 

Not again. 

Not again. 

Not again. 

"I can only let you through,El," Jake laughs coldly, like that of a sinister man. 

"You can't call me that." She snaps, whipping around to face him, the vein in her temple probably throbbing and her fists clenched so tight she'll probably break her fingers. 

Jake puts his hands up in mock surrender. "Fine, fine, Eleanor." His snake lips twist into that ugly look. "But if you want to go, you have to stay for a moment." 

"And do what!?" 

Jake steps fowards, his feet shuffling on the darkness beneath them. 

"You have to forgive me." 

Ellie sighs. "Fine, I forgive you, can I go now!?" 

Jake's laugh means no. 

No. 

Great. 

"You have to say it from the heart Ellie, like you mean it." 

Ellie puts her hands on her hips, her nails digging into her flesh, piercing her skin. The pain makes her think more, makes her angrier, makes her want to get out of here as fast as she can because every second with him feels like an hour in hell. 

She has forgiven him. She's moved on and she's done with him, thrown away everything but her wedding ring, kept safe in a lockbox as a reminder of her past. Was that not good enough? To throw away all their photos, to move out of the house and all the way across the city. To get a new phone number because the last one has call logs of her and Jake, text messages she can't erase. Photos she wants gone. 

Has that not been enough? 

Of course it hasn't. Not to this cruel universe. 

"How? How?" Is all she can say, biting back tears of anger welling up in the back of her throat. 

"Remember the good and bad times," He says simply, his hands stuffed in the front pocket of his jeans. 

She remembers the good times. Falling in love with him on the first day of the NSA. Getting married many years later, practically eloping, not her dream wedding but Jake wanted something small and quiet. She remembers the four years of marriage spent together, nearly four and a half. 

Good times that bring a small smile to her lips. 

But the bad times bring an ugly frown, twisting the smile upside down. 

The finding out he was cheating on her, the growing apart when they started her new job at NCIS. The finding out they had more differences than she had even known about, or maybe tried to forget. 

Bad times that make her want to curl up in a little ball or roar with anger. 

She has moved on. She found other people, she found a new family, new friends that would guide her into different paths, make her start painting and creating again, like she used to, re-sparking an old flame when the other had been burnt out. 

She has moved on. 

She has. 

Right? 

She found Qasim, who was sweet and gentle. Went on crazy dates with guys who where prettier than they where smart. Been with guys younger Ellie would have frowned at and wrinkled her brow. She found Nick, who was that knight in shining armor she had never asked for, never needed, but had been there anyways. Thinking of him hurt, hurt more than she had even been hurt by Jake. 

Thinking of him reminded her that she could tell him this when she got back to the real world, the land of the living and the land of pain. 

She'll tell him what's inside her heart. 

Ellie turns to Jake again, releasing the tension welled up in her arms, legs and fists. She lets the words roll off her tongue, naturally, ones that should have been spoken years ago but never had been. Words pent up in her throat for much too long. 

"I forgive you." 

Jake's smile isn't worth it. 

  
"You can go." Is his lasts words before he thankfully slips back into the shadows. 

Ellie runs to the tunnel, her legs filled with energy and her heart pumping wildly. 

She's going back. 

Stopping at the entrance, hesitating slightly, she dips her hands into the warm, comforting light. It's real.

And so, Ellie runs to the end, where she will find herself back home. Where she belongs. 

* * *

Nick is there when she wakes up, It's the tenth day, around one in the morning, when he hears movement. He's sleeping on a chair in the little room, it's grown comfortable, he's spent very few nights in his bed since they got back. 

His eyes open and he scans around, the movement might have been a nurse or doctor checking on Ellie or something. 

But instead he finds those beautiful green-gray eyes that he's grown to love. 

"Ellie!" His eyes fly wider and wider, his hands going for hers as her eyes open sleepily. 

"Where-where am I?" She croaks out, her lips are parched and throat probably dry. 

"You're at Walter Reed, recovering." 

Her eyes are alarmed with fear, like she's seeing ghosts. 

"Asif-! Did you-did you get him!?" 

Nick nods. "Yeah. we got him, you're safe Ellie. You're safe." He says this over and over like a mantra. For her, for himself too. She's safe damnit and that matters more than catching the bad-guys. 

Ellie struggles to sit up on the bed, her eyes woozy with pain. Maybe he should get a nurse in here but when he scans her vitals, they look normal to him, her heart-beat just a little higher than normal, but she's probably in shock of waking up. 

Nick watches her look down at her arms and moving the hem of her shirt to look at her chest, disgust written across her face, also pain. He can't even begin to understand what she is feeling. He isn't sure if he wants to either. 

"I-, they didn't get any information." She whispers with tears in her eyes as she brushes the scars along her wrists and arms. Nick pulls his hand back, not wanting to hold hers if she doesn't want to. 

Nick nods. "I know, you're too strong for that." 

"No." She croaks. "They broke me." 

Nick's hands fly up to catch her's as they go to her face, holding them gently in his, his thumb rubbing her palm softly. "No, they didn't. You may feel broken Ellie, but you, you aren't broken. You just need healing." 

Ellie laughs, a broken kind of laugh. "The things they did...." She whispers, fear laced in everyword. "It's the kind of thing that breaks people." 

Nick leans up and pressed a kiss to her cheek, without even knowing it at first, she doesn't slap him or push him away. 

"Who said broken people can't be put back together again?" 

Nick doesn't know if his words will be true, but he's much to happy to see her awake than to drink in the fact that a part of her is gone. 


End file.
